in-flight meal – Monarch Bloghttp://blog.monarch.co.uk
Monarch Airlines Official BlogThu, 17 Aug 2017 17:10:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.2Hot out of the oven: New improved inflight menu!http://blog.monarch.co.uk/your-food-feedback/
http://blog.monarch.co.uk/your-food-feedback/#commentsFri, 25 Nov 2011 15:45:15 +0000http://dev-monarch.wp-sites.co.uk/?p=537For many of us, it’s food that makes the flight. Whether you’re on your way to a well-deserved break in a fabulous sunny destination or bracing yourself for a return to British weather, we understand how important it is that you have something hot, tasty and comforting to tuck into. About this time last year, we reviewed all of our customer service questionnaires and undertook an intensive research project. Our aim was to discover what you thought of our menu and what you felt we should improve. We also consulted expert professional chefs and product suppliers to bring new pizzazz to our inflight meals. After roadtesting our new recipes onboard, the work culminated in the launch of a brand new menu which included lots of fresh leafy salads, flavoursome hot dishes and a variety of café style snack and drink options. Since the new menu was introduced we’ve been listening closely to your views – and certainly, you’ve not been shy about sharing! As a result of your comments, we’ve made a number of small tweaks and also some more substantial changes to our inflight offering. As you may have read in September, by popular demand we reinstated the traditional hot breakfast option onboard our scheduled flights, with grilled Cumberland sausage, back bacon, scrambled egg, button mushrooms and baked beans to delight your tastebuds in the mornings. This month, again according to your feedback, we’ve changed the hot lunch option. On our outbound scheduled flights you can pre-book a deliciously creamy chicken and mushroom casserole with root vegetables, accompanied by a fresh leaf salad, focaccia bread and mouth-watering chocolate profiteroles. The vegetarian hot lunch is now a delectable spiced vegetarian tagine, a Moroccan-style dish which also appears in our dinner menu, accompanied by leaf salad with balsamic dressing, lemon and mint cous cous, flat bread and yummy chocolate profiteroles for desert. Our inbound flights now offer a hearty beef, rosemary and mushroom casserole with root vegetables, a leaf salad and balsamic dressing, focaccia bread on the side and glazed apple tart to finish. The vegetarian option swaps the casserole for a scrumptious 4 cheese tortolloni pasta dish with tomato and basil sauce, and includes the same sides and dessert. If you’re about to fly and haven’t pre-booked your meal don’t worry, you can order your meal up to 24 hours before departure. We welcome your feedback on these changes and your suggestions for new dishes or amendments to the current menu. Every blog comment, Facebook post and Twitter tweet is passed on to our customer services and inflight catering teams – simply add your views below!

For many of us, it’s food that makes the flight. Whether you’re on your way to a well-deserved break in a fabulous sunny destination or bracing yourself for a return to British weather, we understand how important it is that you have something hot, tasty and comforting to tuck into.

About this time last year, we reviewed all of our customer service questionnaires and undertook an intensive research project. Our aim was to discover what you thought of our menu and what you felt we should improve. We also consulted expert professional chefs and product suppliers to bring new pizzazz to our inflight meals. After roadtesting our new recipes onboard, the work culminated in the launch of a brand new menu which included lots of fresh leafy salads, flavoursome hot dishes and a variety of café style snack and drink options.

Since the new menu was introduced we’ve been listening closely to your views – and certainly, you’ve not been shy about sharing! As a result of your comments, we’ve made a number of small tweaks and also some more substantial changes to our inflight offering. As you may have read in September, by popular demand we reinstated the traditional hot breakfast option onboard our scheduled flights, with grilled Cumberland sausage, back bacon, scrambled egg, button mushrooms and baked beans to delight your tastebuds in the mornings.

This month, again according to your feedback, we’ve changed the hot lunch option. On our outbound scheduled flights you can pre-book a deliciously creamy chicken and mushroom casserole with root vegetables, accompanied by a fresh leaf salad, focaccia bread and mouth-watering chocolate profiteroles. The vegetarian hot lunch is now a delectable spiced vegetarian tagine, a Moroccan-style dish which also appears in our dinner menu, accompanied by leaf salad with balsamic dressing, lemon and mint cous cous, flat bread and yummy chocolate profiteroles for desert.

Our inbound flights now offer a hearty beef, rosemary and mushroom casserole with root vegetables, a leaf salad and balsamic dressing, focaccia bread on the side and glazed apple tart to finish. The vegetarian option swaps the casserole for a scrumptious 4 cheese tortolloni pasta dish with tomato and basil sauce, and includes the same sides and dessert. If you’re about to fly and haven’t pre-booked your meal don’t worry, you can order your meal up to 24 hours before departure.

We welcome your feedback on these changes and your suggestions for new dishes or amendments to the current menu. Every blog comment, Facebook post and Twitter tweet is passed on to our customer services and inflight catering teams – simply add your views below!

]]>http://blog.monarch.co.uk/your-food-feedback/feed/24How to find a cheap flight without paying a king’s ransomhttp://blog.monarch.co.uk/how-to-find-a-cheap-flight-without-paying-a-king%e2%80%99s-ransom/
http://blog.monarch.co.uk/how-to-find-a-cheap-flight-without-paying-a-king%e2%80%99s-ransom/#commentsFri, 28 Oct 2011 16:55:08 +0000http://dev-monarch.wp-sites.co.uk/?p=380My grandfather always told me that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. Well that’s all very well and good, but how do you do it when you’re looking for cheap flights? We’ve thought long and hard about it, and come up with some tips we hope will help. Please leave your ideas in the comments below! When to book There are two schools of thought about when to book a flight to get the best savings. If you know where and when you want to go, and particularly if you’re travelling during a peak period such as a holiday or weekend, we recommend that you book well in advance of travel. This will help you to grab any early bargains available, select your preferred seats on the aircraft, and guarantee your extra legroom seat before they sell out. On the other hand, if you don’t know where you want to go but you know when you want to travel, you can make savings by booking a late flight deal closer to the departure date. Be aware that if you want to travel during peak periods such as school holidays, mid-summer, Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays, prices are likely to be higher due to peaks in demand. It’s all about timing – if you can travel when others are not, chances are you’ll find a cheaper fare. If you want to make a saving, try to book in the ‘shoulder season’ just before or after these peak periods. You may also find tourist site entry fees are reduced or discounted at your destination- and the entry queues will be shorter too! Hotels and resorts will be quieter too – plenty of free sun loungers round the pool! If you can be flexible with your flight times and dates, you’re likely to be able to find a cheaper flight. It also pays to consider different days to your usual routine – some mid-week flights may be cheaper than weekends, and vice versa, depending on the destination. If you’re not fussy about dates or destinations and are looking for something a bit different, our Happy Hour flight offers might be just what you’re after. Happy Hour opens at midday daily until 2pm, and displays a special selection of our cheapest flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Luton. The flights change on a daily basis, so grab them while you can. Whether you’re planning to book early or late, check our cheap flight offers page regularly and particularly just before you make your booking – there could be an offer to suit you. Where to book We recommend that you book your flight online – our website offers cheaper fares and lower fees than booking via our call centre. Comparison sites are a great way to check the base price of a flight. But don’t forget these sites can’t show the real cost of your flight, including booking fees, luggage fees, an inflight meal and so on – so the results can be a little bit misleading as they’re missing this information. Since most airlines (including ourselves) have unbundled their services like meals and hold baggage from the flight price, it can be tricky to make like-for-like comparisons on prices. One way to compare airlines is to search for a flight on a comparison site. Once you find the airlines that match your price, departure time and airport criteria the closest, you can then go through the booking process on separate tabs to see how the extras add up. It will take longer, but if you have the time you might just avoid hitting hidden extras. At Monarch, we don’t charge for payment by debit card or Pay Pal and our credit card fee is just £10 per booking, which can help you make a good saving when compared to our competitors. If you can, try to be flexible with your airports. You may find a cheaper flight from a more distant airport – though it pays to check the cost of travel to and from the airport e.g. public transport vs taxi. If the cost of this is prohibitive, why not take a look at airport parking. If you’re worried about spending too much on snacks onboard, our tasty, hunger-busting in-flight meals can be purchased online in advance for a very reasonable cost. Want to save money on luggage? Pack light! Take just what you need for a few days in your carry on bag and put the money you would have spent on luggage costs towards a new wardrobe. You were going to go shopping anyway, right? Of course, you can carry 10kg in your hand luggage for free. Need some extra baggage but worried about excess charges? You’ll save a significant amount by weighing your bags at home and buying an extra bag online, rather than waiting till you get to the airport. Are you a frequent flier? Join our Vantage Club for additional time saving and money saving benefits. Collect your points towards a free flight! And some bonus tips for when you get there… Unless you’re going to see family or own a second home, chances are you can be quite flexible about where to go. Don’t forget to consider the exchange rate and do some research about the relative cost of food and accommodation where you’re going, to alternative options. Love to shop in markets? If you can learn some of the local language or bring a phrasebook and you’ll find it much, much easier when it comes to bartering. Even if you don’t know enough to bargain fluently, just a few polite words including please, thank you, how much and I’m sorry, that’s too expensive, will go a long way towards goodwill and hopefully a cheaper price for you. Make sure you get an international student card before you travel, if you’re eligible, as you can often save between a third to a half of the cost of admission fees into many tourist attractions around the world – not to mention the great savings you can make on your flights as well! If you’re an OAP and proud of it, make sure the companies providing your travel services are aware of it. There may be discounts available but not necessarily advertised… and it doesn’t hurt to ask! What are your top tips for finding a cheap flight and saving money on holiday? We’d love to know! Add your ideas to the comments below.

My grandfather always told me that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. Well that’s all very well and good, but how do you do it when you’re looking for cheap flights? We’ve thought long and hard about it, and come up with some tips we hope will help. Please leave your ideas in the comments below!

When to book

There are two schools of thought about when to book a flight to get the best savings. If you know where and when you want to go, and particularly if you’re travelling during a peak period such as a holiday or weekend, we recommend that you book well in advance of travel. This will help you to grab any early bargains available, select your preferred seats on the aircraft, and guarantee your extra legroom seat before they sell out.

On the other hand, if you don’t know where you want to go but you know when you want to travel, you can make savings by booking a late flight deal closer to the departure date.

Be aware that if you want to travel during peak periods such as school holidays, mid-summer, Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays, prices are likely to be higher due to peaks in demand. It’s all about timing – if you can travel when others are not, chances are you’ll find a cheaper fare. If you want to make a saving, try to book in the ‘shoulder season’ just before or after these peak periods. You may also find tourist site entry fees are reduced or discounted at your destination- and the entry queues will be shorter too! Hotels and resorts will be quieter too – plenty of free sun loungers round the pool!

If you can be flexible with your flight times and dates, you’re likely to be able to find a cheaper flight. It also pays to consider different days to your usual routine – some mid-week flights may be cheaper than weekends, and vice versa, depending on the destination.

If you’re not fussy about dates or destinations and are looking for something a bit different, our Happy Hour flight offers might be just what you’re after. Happy Hour opens at midday daily until 2pm, and displays a special selection of our cheapest flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Luton. The flights change on a daily basis, so grab them while you can.

Whether you’re planning to book early or late, check our cheap flight offers page regularly and particularly just before you make your booking – there could be an offer to suit you.

Where to book

Comparison sites are a great way to check the base price of a flight. But don’t forget these sites can’t show the real cost of your flight, including booking fees, luggage fees, an inflight meal and so on – so the results can be a little bit misleading as they’re missing this information.

Since most airlines (including ourselves) have unbundled their services like meals and hold baggage from the flight price, it can be tricky to make like-for-like comparisons on prices. One way to compare airlines is to search for a flight on a comparison site. Once you find the airlines that match your price, departure time and airport criteria the closest, you can then go through the booking process on separate tabs to see how the extras add up. It will take longer, but if you have the time you might just avoid hitting hidden extras.

If you can, try to be flexible with your airports. You may find a cheaper flight from a more distant airport – though it pays to check the cost of travel to and from the airport e.g. public transport vs taxi. If the cost of this is prohibitive, why not take a look at airport parking.

Want to save money on luggage? Pack light! Take just what you need for a few days in your carry on bag and put the money you would have spent on luggage costs towards a new wardrobe. You were going to go shopping anyway, right? Of course, you can carry 10kg in your hand luggage for free.

Need some extra baggage but worried about excess charges? You’ll save a significant amount by weighing your bags at home and buying an extra bag online, rather than waiting till you get to the airport.

Are you a frequent flier? Join our Vantage Club for additional time saving and money saving benefits. Collect your points towards a free flight!

And some bonus tips for when you get there…

Unless you’re going to see family or own a second home, chances are you can be quite flexible about where to go. Don’t forget to consider the exchange rate and do some research about the relative cost of food and accommodation where you’re going, to alternative options.

Love to shop in markets? If you can learn some of the local language or bring a phrasebook and you’ll find it much, much easier when it comes to bartering. Even if you don’t know enough to bargain fluently, just a few polite words including please, thank you, how much and I’m sorry, that’s too expensive, will go a long way towards goodwill and hopefully a cheaper price for you.

Make sure you get an international student card before you travel, if you’re eligible, as you can often save between a third to a half of the cost of admission fees into many tourist attractions around the world – not to mention the great savings you can make on your flights as well!

If you’re an OAP and proud of it, make sure the companies providing your travel services are aware of it. There may be discounts available but not necessarily advertised… and it doesn’t hurt to ask!

What are your top tips for finding a cheap flight and saving money on holiday? We’d love to know! Add your ideas to the comments below.

]]>http://blog.monarch.co.uk/how-to-find-a-cheap-flight-without-paying-a-king%e2%80%99s-ransom/feed/5Plane food, not plain food – our menu is all about you!http://blog.monarch.co.uk/plane-food-not-plain-food-our-menu-is-all-about-you/
http://blog.monarch.co.uk/plane-food-not-plain-food-our-menu-is-all-about-you/#commentsMon, 26 Sep 2011 10:30:36 +0000http://dev-monarch.wp-sites.co.uk/?p=150If you’re anything like me, you spend an awful lot of time during your holiday thinking about food. It’s sort of an obsession – should I go for a la carte or al fresco, will I dare to try some crazy local delicacies, is it OK to spend half my budget at restaurants… food is constantly on my mind! But is airline food something any of us think about a lot? Do any of us really look forward to it or is plane food too much like plain food? Monarch was keen to find out what customers thought about this when we started overhauling the menu late last year. Our in-flight catering team keeps a close eye on customer and crew feedback about meals and uses the compliments and criticisms to improve the menu on a regular basis. So logically, the first thing we did when we launched a review of our menu was to ask customers what they thought of our current menu. After considering responses to our regular customer service questionnaires, we also commissioned a major research project. We set up a ‘food jury’ which consisted of people who had recently flown on Monarch and our competitor airlines and gave them extensive surveys to find out in great detail what they thought of airline food. Next we surveyed our crew to get their feedback about the kinds of meals which were popular onboard, which were easy to prepare and to present in an appealing way. Now, it may not come as a surprise to you, but the feedback from several months of research showed travellers had very low expectations about airline food. It turns out that passengers are often disappointed by in-flight meals and don’t see it as something to look forward to… no matter which airline they flew with (which made us feel a little bit better!) Armed with this knowledge, we decided to make some significant changes to our menu for scheduled flights. We consulted professional restaurant chefs and product suppliers who sought out a range of new foods which could bring some pizzazz to our meals and offer good value for money for travellers. The experts offered us a new ‘café style’ menu, with lots of high quality, tasty and healthy options to choose from, including paninis, freshly squeezed juices and delicious desserts. Sample menus were taste-tested by our food jury to make sure they would appeal to a broad range of tastes and dietary requirements. If the jury didn’t like certain items, they were rejected and replaced by alternatives. The finalised selections were then ‘road tested’ in the air by chefs and Monarch key cabin crew. Tweaks were made based on feedback from these trials, then the menus retested, finalised then launched on 1 July. Although we’ve done a lot of research, we’re not resting on our laurels. We’re constantly refining and improving our menu based on your feedback. Back by popular demand, our hot breakfast option has been reinstated onboard our scheduled flights. We’re also pleased to have received a lot of compliments about our paninis and toasties, with hundreds of thousands of them flying off the trollies this year. Want to learn more about our in-flight meals? Discover a mouth-watering range of meals and snacks on board our flights and order now, at the discounted online rate of £7.99 or £8.99! Meals can be ordered up to 24 hours before departure. If we stacked all the cups of tea we sell on board in a year, they would reach over 15,000 metres high – or around 49,000 ft – higher than a commercial aircraft can fly! Have you flown on a scheduled flight with Monarch this year? Have you pre-ordered a meal and compared the old and new menus? We’d love to know what you think of the new range. What are your favourite items? What do you think we should keep/discard/bring back/add? Let us know in the comments below.

If you’re anything like me, you spend an awful lot of time during your holiday thinking about food. It’s sort of an obsession – should I go for a la carte or al fresco, will I dare to try some crazy local delicacies, is it OK to spend half my budget at restaurants… food is constantly on my mind! But is airline food something any of us think about a lot? Do any of us really look forward to it or is plane food too much like plain food?

Monarch was keen to find out what customers thought about this when we started overhauling the menu late last year. Our in-flight catering team keeps a close eye on customer and crew feedback about meals and uses the compliments and criticisms to improve the menu on a regular basis. So logically, the first thing we did when we launched a review of our menu was to ask customers what they thought of our current menu.

Chicken Caesar salad

After considering responses to our regular customer service questionnaires, we also commissioned a major research project. We set up a ‘food jury’ which consisted of people who had recently flown on Monarch and our competitor airlines and gave them extensive surveys to find out in great detail what they thought of airline food. Next we surveyed our crew to get their feedback about the kinds of meals which were popular onboard, which were easy to prepare and to present in an appealing way.

Now, it may not come as a surprise to you, but the feedback from several months of research showed travellers had very low expectations about airline food. It turns out that passengers are often disappointed by in-flight meals and don’t see it as something to look forward to… no matter which airline they flew with (which made us feel a little bit better!)

Chicken tikka, spinach and pilar rice

Armed with this knowledge, we decided to make some significant changes to our menu for scheduled flights. We consulted professional restaurant chefs and product suppliers who sought out a range of new foods which could bring some pizzazz to our meals and offer good value for money for travellers. The experts offered us a new ‘café style’ menu, with lots of high quality, tasty and healthy options to choose from, including paninis, freshly squeezed juices and delicious desserts.

Sample menus were taste-tested by our food jury to make sure they would appeal to a broad range of tastes and dietary requirements. If the jury didn’t like certain items, they were rejected and replaced by alternatives. The finalised selections were then ‘road tested’ in the air by chefs and Monarch key cabin crew. Tweaks were made based on feedback from these trials, then the menus retested, finalised then launched on 1 July.

Although we’ve done a lot of research, we’re not resting on our laurels. We’re constantly refining and improving our menu based on your feedback. Back by popular demand, our hot breakfast option has been reinstated onboard our scheduled flights. We’re also pleased to have received a lot of compliments about our paninis and toasties, with hundreds of thousands of them flying off the trollies this year.

Four cheese tortolloni with tomato and basil sauce

Want to learn more about our in-flight meals? Discover a mouth-watering range of meals and snacks on board our flights and order now, at the discounted online rate of £7.99 or £8.99! Meals can be ordered up to 24 hours before departure.

If we stacked all the cups of tea we sell on board in a year, they would reach over 15,000 metres high – or around 49,000 ft – higher than a commercial aircraft can fly!

Have you flown on a scheduled flight with Monarch this year? Have you pre-ordered a meal and compared the old and new menus? We’d love to know what you think of the new range. What are your favourite items? What do you think we should keep/discard/bring back/add? Let us know in the comments below.